When is Modern? When is Contemporary Art? A frame of reference by Cassandra Philida Six Most people think of as a slurry 1967) in the garden… over a half composed of Impressionism, Surrealism, Expres- century ago. Ellsworth Kelly’s edges sionism, Cubism and lots of other “isms” that were admired for being hard in Jansen’s History of Art has condensed into three Color Field , the” patron categories Expression, Abstraction and Fantasy saint” of Pop Art was Marcel to cover emotional statements, formal structure Duchamp who doubles as the and the labyrinth of the mind, respectively. All patron saint of 1970’s Conceptual of this falls under the heading of “Modernism” Art, which is still developing. Judy which gives the artist “a mission” to create Pfaff’s Dragons was installed in the something new and define, if not influence, the 1981 Biennial, Whitney of meaning of his time. American Art, New York. It seems so fresh and new but it was 32 years When is “Modern”? The Impressionists were ago. We have Christos “ Happen- confounding people in 1860s! Art Nouveau in ings”, Nevelson and Oldenburg the 1890s! More than a century ago! Matisse in the 1960s and so many more. created the “Joy of Life” in 1905. Roualt, Nolde, The information explosion that the Dragons by Judy Pfaff The Fifer Kokoshka’s great works were created in the an installation at The Whitney, 1981 by Edouard Manet internet and computers brings all early 1900’s, a century ago! Kandinsky died in this to our attention with an immediacy that belies the decades. 1944 before World War II had even ended. Picasso’s Guernica was ex- hibited in 1937 capturing the Spanish Civil War. 1850s seem more than Alexander Calder (`1898-1976), Joan Miro,(1893-1983) and M.C a century away from 1950s when Edward Hopper, and Escher(1898-1972) had long and artistically productive lives, but their creative lives were finished thirty or forty years ago. We have to define Larry Rivers were “defining the meaning of their time.” When Dubuffet them as “modern” because all these great artists and the many that were and De Kooning were demonizing the female figure and the conven- not mentioned radically changed the way we perceived our world and what we judged as ART. They are not Contemporary…. That means NOW or VERY RECENTLY, perhaps no older than the viewer. The 21st Century has basketballs in fishtanks, stuffed zebras and sharks, plastics and more plastics, bare white rooms with huge black smudges on canvas. “less is more” “de-structure everything that was” or from WB Yeats expressing the weltschmertz of our times: “Now that the ladders are gone, I must lie down where all the ladders start In the foul rag-and-bone shop of my heart.” Photography is the unsung hero of modern art. H aving an accurate im- Les Nymphéas, Monet 1919 age of reality freed the artists to present their impressions, abstractions and fantasies from “that foul rag –and- bone shop.” We know what our great, tional definition of grace, Dubuffet said for all who followed, “ Look to grandparents and their world looked like. We don’t need, although we my work as an enterprise for the rehabilitation of scorned values and a may still desire, a work of their ardent celebration.” The violent “furious energy of process. realistic oil “of and abstract generally was a conscious because we have rebuke to the Mom, apple pie and Peter Pan collars of the 1950s but a photograph. THAT was the 1950s. Those most “modern” of sentiments and artistic Actually we even configurations were created over sixty years ago! know what their parents looked In the 1960’s the iconic work like, although it is by Charles Demuth, I Saw very faded. Anyone The Figure 5 In Gold (1928) who cares to can know a great deal was so familiar that Robert In- Piet Mondrian: Tableau no. 2 / Composition no. V, 1914 diana appropriated it in 1963 about history and and made a sensation! So we facts of the past because someone took a picture of it. Photography arrive at the art created a “life- established itself as an art rather than a tool in the 20th century. 21st time” ago…Rauschenberg, century technologies have erased time and space and turned aesthetics, Lichtenstein, Kienholz . The photography and all the arts upside down and expanded the parameters Rothko Chapel in Houston, to infinity. Have you ever seen a halogram? Modern art is art since the whose admirers associate 1860’s. Contemporary reflects NOW. “Now” is expanding so rapidly that it is gone before we noticed. it with “trance-like rapture “ was built with Barnett New- *** Jansen’s History of Art has an extensive Illustrated Time Chart. Literature, Politics,Science etc, as it relates to ART. It is fascinating! man’s Broken Obelisk (1963- Broken Obelisk by Barnett Newman

For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to www.wilmetteartsguild.org A Few of the Wilmette Arts Guild’s Contemporary Artists

Force of a Thousand Hearts by Franco Muscarella Blue Bird by Judith Edelman

Cocooning by Rita Price “Air and Earth” by Shirley Engelstein

“Spring in Korean Mountains” by Hyang Sook Cho “Corncobs of ” by Howard Frank For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to www.wilmetteartsguild.org : The Womb of Twentieth Century American Arts Gathered Bits by Julie Ressler But between the vincible, who had surrendered to the public world, and the invincible, ther perception”. This essay was to become a primer for the Black who would not, there were those who began to ask why they had given up, unable to take their submission as final, and yet not knowing how, or whether indeed, they might Mountain poets. The unit of structure in the poem was reduced become artists once again...It was for these that Black Mountain was founded.” John down to what could fit within an utterance. That became a distinc- Andrew Rice, Founder Black Mountain College, tive style of poetic diction (e.g. “yr” for “your”) The Black Mountain “The justification for a university is that it preserves the connection between knowledge and the zest of life, by uniting the young and the old in the imaginative consideration of poets pursued the Beats and the Beats responded. Each made the learning.” Alfred North Whitehead The Aims of Education, l929 other even more famous. If artists would dream a school, they would dream Black Mountain Thinkers, Artists and Scientists were looking for new paradigms, new College in the near Asheville which actually existed expressions for their discontent with an increasingly structured and for two brief decades of utterly astounding productivity 1933-1957. rigid world order. They needed the scope of using connections All manner of experiments were brought forth and polished. Buck- to new materials and ideas that science was bringing forth. WW minster Fuller found intern Kenneth Snelson and his geodesic dome I (“war to end all wars”) and the Depression had sharply focused appeared. designed avant garde and jewel- critical minds on the flaws inherent in our society. While the gov- ry. Ruth Asawa came from being interned in US camp for the Japa- ernment passed laws and funded certain educational projects that nese to produce incredible and went on to found many “would be of use to the State,” which lead to the Smith-Hughes cultural organizations in and serve on the Act of 1917, John Dewey and others protested vehemently that Arts Council. There are so many more! This shining interlude was education must be useful to the individual and that no one knew the womb of Twentieth Century arts and poetry which came to ex- enough to predict what would be useful thirty or fifty years later… plode onto the stage of the sixties and remains vital even until today. the life span of that individual . The changes were going to be too rapid and too profound. After WW ll returning vets had quite Just a list of faculty and student names leaves us breathless at the enough of authoritarian living. They were disillusioned by and dis- tremendous number of cultural power sources who gathered gusted by what the Establishment had wrought. They wished to there at that time. The Advisory Board was John Dewey, Walter be free to experiment and learn as they chose. They needed to Gropius, and Albert Einstein! Some of the collaborations were as- expand their approaches to art to encompass a world view that tounding. There was a theatrical of Eric Satie’s Ruse of the Medusa the war had foisted on them. They had seen the enemy and it was (La piége de Méduse), arranged by : within us all. as Baron Medusa, William Schrauger as Adolfo, Elaine de Kooning as Frisette, and as Jonas, “a costly mechanical The interdisciplinary aspect in which no form of creativity was supe- monkey.” Clemens Kalischer, photographer, recorded this. At this rior to another, where , painting, dance, music and inven- level who was the teacher and who was the student? There were tion were all encouraged led to lightning connections. Creatives in poems published that were illustrated by Rauschenberg and Cy all fields could talk to each other! This lead to an explosion of ex- Twombley, just to mention two. There were fabulous photographs traordinary work that we are still sifting through and enjoying. Why taken and collected by Hazel Larson Archer which is how we know didn’t the college continue? One answer is that it was no longer the “who” and “when” of this, but photography was also coming necessary. Its work was done. The fifties art and design scene had a into its own as an art form. vibrant life of its own and would carry the day into the 21 century. Another is that the extraordinary visionary leader which is essential John Andrews Rice was its founder, beginning work in 1933. His did not step forward. Whatever the reason, it was enough. The new ideas included: the centrality of artistic experience to support extraordinary new Arts of the 20thCentury were birthed. learning in all disciplines and the value of experiential learning. He also enjoyed bringing in diverse visitors from other disciplines like May **Please note that this essay is not meant to be original scholarship on my part. I was thrilled to find Black Mountain College and liberally lifted what I wanted to share it Sarton and Thornton Wilder. He criticized grades based on memori- with the Guild. Please look online and use these resources to find out more about this zation, overreliance on The Great Books, and classroom attendance. incredible experience! Josef and Anni Albers of the Bauhaus Movement followed him. Harris, Mary Emma. The Arts at Black Mountain College. MIT Press, 2002. ISBN 0-262-58212-0 PBS American Experience: Black Mountain College Online search, They were refugees from Hitler’s Germany “Let’s begin from zero.” Google “Black Mouintain College Images” Click on an image and it will tell you who it is. Was the motto. The Buddhist call it “Beginners mind.” This ap- Black Mountain College: Sprouted Seeds: an Anthology of Personal Accounts, Marvin Lane proach asks the artist to leave his “shoulds” and predictable results, be “new” be “what could be.” , in particular, stressed the importance of a structured approach to experimentation. “ His curriculum was founded around an understanding of the basics of form rather than precedent which enabled students to develop critical skills.” ‘Abstracting,’ he wrote, ‘is the essential foundation of the human spirit.’” Albers successor was Charles Olson, a poet. In1950 he published his seminal essay, “Projective Verse.” He called for a poetry of “open field” composition to replace traditional closed poetic forms with an improvised form that “should reflect exactly the content of the poem.” This form was to be based on the line, and each line was to be a unit of breath and of utterance. The content was to con- For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to sist of “one perception immediately and directly (leading) to a fur- www.wilmetteartsguild.org Black Mountain College: 1933 - 1957 Students Faculty Hazel Larson Archer Josef and Anni Albers Ruth Asawa Eric Bentley Harrison Begay, painter Josef Breitenbach Lyle Bongé John Cage John Andrew Rice Nicholas Cernovich Harry Callahan John Chamberlain Mary Callery Robert Creeley Robert Creeley Merce Cunningham John Cage Fielding Dawson Edward Dahlberg Elaine de Kooning Ed Dorn Robert Duncan Jorge Fick Buckminster Fuller Buckminster Fuller Walter Gropius Joseph Fiore James Leo Herlihy Lou Harrison Alfred Kazin Ruth Asawa Basil King Richard Lippold Gwendolyn Knight Alvin Lustig Ingeborg Lauterstein Fuller’s Geodesic Dome Charles Olson Jane Mayhall M. C. Richards Peter Nemenyi Albert William Levi Robert De Niro, Sr. Alexander Schawinsky Ben Shahn Isola di Rifuti Kenneth Noland Arthur Siegel Arthur Penn Aaron Siskind Charles Perrow Theodoros Stamos Robert Rauschenberg Jack Tworkov Dorothea Rockburne Emerson Woelffer and Michael Rumaker William R. Wunsch Manvel Schauffler Guest lecturers included Oli Sihvonen Albert Einstein Kenneth Snelson Clement Greenberg Merce Cunningham Claude Stoller Bernard Rudofsky Svarc Lauterstein Richard Lippold Dody Weston Thompson William Carlos Williams Cy Twombly John Urbain Robert C. Turner Elaine Schmitt Urbain Summer Faculty & Visitors Stan VanDerBeek Joseph Albers teaching at Cora Kelley Ward Aldous Huxley Black Mountain David Jacques Way Henry Miller May Sarton Susan Weil Thornton Wilder Robert Rauschenberg John Wieners Robert Motherwell Jonathan Williams Fannie Hillsmith Vera B. Williams Amedea Ozenfant Judd Woldin Lyonel Feininger

Cy Twombly Annie Albers at loom

Eric Satie’s La Piége de Meduse: Buckminster Fuller, Baron Fresh air and long walks at B.M.C. Medusa and Elaine de Kooning as Frisette

Heinrich Jalowetz For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to www.wilmetteartsguild.org Charles Olson The Elephant in the Room By Ewan MacGregor An amazing phenomenon has developed in the art world become worth millions of dollars on but no one has paid much attention. Namely the booming market the art market? for contemporary The basis for that market is a three legged stool consisting artworks that of collectors, dealers and curators. Remove any leg and it collapses. no one would There are many reasons for the success of that market which involves want for free. But a combination of the fashion industry (everyone wants to be cool), they aren’t free. potential for large profit (a thousand dollars’ worth of materials and No, people are labor may become a million dollar item) and the eccentric taste of spending millions folks who will go to great lengths to create an original identity. It of dollars for all begins with a given work of art being branded as a modern anything which masterpiece. Often this starts with a dealer who believes in the has somehow genius of some unknown artist. Once that has been established the become collectors vie for the right to own it. After the big collectors buy in, The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, by Damien Hirst established as the curators are not far behind. a «contemporary When works go for millions at auction the curators feel masterpiece.» Such things as aluminum boxes (Donald Judd), obliged to have exhibitions and put some of these works in their basketballs in a fish tank (Jeff Koons), off the shelf 8» X 8» metal . All of which leads to more frenzy on the part of the plates (Carl Andre), stuffed shark (Damien collectors. The dealers are always in attendance, keeping the Hirst), even a used machinery well oiled. In the last century art bed spread filled critics were an important part of this process. with detritus (Tracy People like Greenberg, Rosenberg and Emin). The list goes Steinberg were power brokers; but now the on--the primary market seems to have a mind of its own and qualification for the critics are more like cheerleaders than such artwork is that kingmakers. The Painted Word by Tom Wolfe it is «original», i.e. no claimed that modern art was only there to one else is selling illustrate various theories about art and that Three Ball Tank the same product such writing would become more important by Jeff Koons and that it has been than the art itself. Although very amusing, branded by the art establishment as great art. this thesis has not borne out. Recently dealers The fact that such work sells for huge sums is have relied on the collectors and curators like an elephant smack dab in the center of to establish value. A single multi- million the room. No one seems surprised, it is just dollar sale at auction is worth more than the there. opinion of even a widely read critic. The news media does in fact report on all these sales, especially the annual auctions for contemporary The Stool: Collectors, Dealers and Curators art, but the general tone is that of awe and admiration for how much a given work will bring. They list the new high for a given Collectors artist much the way the weekly paper lists the amount of box office There are many different kinds of collectors, people who money each movie brought in the past week. Magazines often buy rare coins, movie costumes, antiques, whatever. Recently the profile star artists and give them the kind of press one expects of a New Yorker wrote about the sale of a baseball card for two million rock star. Little is said about the aesthetic accomplishments of the dollars. So what is special about those who collect contemporary artist, rather they extoll their status (generally linked to sales) or how art? These are people who buy things which someone, usually a much the important curators and collectors have valued the work. dealer, has told them is a great work. Inevitably this is something no So how does this happen? How does the average one else would want in the first place, maybe a fabricated object wannabe artist (not actually made by the artist himself) such as Koon’s Balloon Dog. break into the Maybe it is something from an industrial supply house like the Andre big time and sell fire bricks. Other examples include “found objects” which Richard stuff of nugatory Tuttle has presented as art. The crushed cars which Chamberlain aesthetic value for got from the auto salvage yard fall into that category. Once these big bucks? How objects have been branded they can increase in value. One may well can stuff made ask “if someone has the yen to collect, why not collect something with a minimum he actually wants?” That is indeed a good question. The problem of technical skill is that anything which other people want, such as a fancy car, a or perhaps even diamond ring, whatever... is something for which there is already a made by someone market. You can’t jack up the value just by owning it. If you buy a else (a «fabricator») Cadillac, anyone else can get the same car at the standard market value. However, if you buy a painting for which no market has been My Bed by Tracy Emins somehow The Elephant in the Room established then it can appreciate just by being in your collection. You into a silk screen by mechanical may sell it later for ten times the original price. That doesn’t usually process. What the artist did was happen in the ordinary market unless a lot of time has gone by and to create the idea of this photo there are other folks who want that type of painting. On top of that as art-----it was not necessarily one can be seen as a brilliant connoisseur who bought in early created by him. And this kind of before others realized that a process can be done in multiples stuffed shark could be worth so that two or more collectors can twelve million dollars. This is actually have the same work, done an extension of the old story of by the same artist. What makes Non-Chamberlain the “Emperor’s New Clothes”: such a work valuable? First, this is Crushed Car $500. namely, that the collector an invention of a new art form –if Forney Museum can indeed see the new another artist made the same photographic blow up and turned it clothes, can well appreciate into a silk screen that would only be a copy of Warhol’s idea. Richard them. If the ordinary mortal Prince made a photograph of a photograph of the Marlboro man Chamberlain Crushed Car $1.8 Million doesn’t get it…. well that is just that was originally a billboard advertisement. This sold at auction for evidence of their inability to over three million dollars. So why don’t other photographers make understand the nature of art. Finally, there are many people who such a copy? Because he successfully invented a new work - it was are eager to create a new environment for themselves; to actually the idea of it, the concept of making the copy, which became valued erase the past—to escape the hum-drum bourgeois world of their as art. In the parlance of the art world, he “appropriated” this image upbringing. They create a new and turned it into a work of art. world by having rooms dominated This is where the dealer by contemporary art. Maybe a comes in. Anyone can invent a new monochrome by Ellsworth Kelley style, a new form of art. What takes real or a painting of letters on a blue talent is to market this, to create a brand background like the Ruscha painting for the new form. Not an easy thing for “OOF”. Taken together these works the artist alone. The new work needs create a brave, new environment. exposure, to be seen in a gallery, to be These are some of the motives which written about, to reach a large audience. explain how contemporary art has Once such work is in major collections, found its way into major collections the museums feel it is time to have it also. and become such a hot commodity Richard Serra made a lot of “drawings” in the auction market. that were large canvas The Dealers works There are thousands covered of dealers all across the country. with black oil Most handle traditional forms such pencil. Some as landscape, portraits, still life or were all other decorative styles. These are not people promoting new art or black, some anything which one would find in a left part of contemporary art gallery. Although the canvas these forms can be expensive there is a fairly standard way of bare. The Metropolitan Museum of Art establishing value for them. A well done landscape by a known artist hosted a large exhibition of this work. It is can bring several thousand dollars, perhaps more but will not be hard to imagine that the curators at the Met would have decided to show this a million dollar painting within the lifetime of the artist. The pricing Wagner Baseball Card of such work is related to the level of comparable works by that work on its own merits. At the same time artist or equivalent paintings by others. Since one is dealing with as the show. These and similar works were being offered at a blue an established product it is easy to compare prices and have expert chip gallery in NY for hundreds of thousands of dollars each. The opinions about the level of value for any given work. art dealers have created a Things are different in the realm of contemporary art. brand, sold millions of dollars There each work is quite original compared to of the product and even had anything else one finds in galleries. Indeed that it validated by one of the is the whole point of a lot of contemporary most prestigious museums art—the work is more of an invention than a in the country. new example of some recognized art form. In a way it is like the When Warhol makes a silk screen of a photo old alchemist dream of from a magazine, as in “Car Wreck”, the artist turning base metal into hands may not even touch the canvas. A gold. One wonders why OOF by Ed Ruscha photo is transposed onto canvas and turned Balloon Dog by Jeff Koons the bright young stars at The Elephant in the Room Wharton, Harvard like: “How dare he make all that profit on Business School etc my work?” What they didn’t appreciate are not interning was the fact that Skull began the process with the art dealers of establishing the work as a viable instead of those investment. Anything else the artist did stuffy banks in Wall would be much more profitable because Street. How many B of Skull having bought their work at a school courses teach time when most people would not have students the way to accepted it. turn a few hundred One problem with the three dollars’ worth of divisions (collector, dealer and curator) Run Dog Run material and labor is that these lines are often blurred now Christopher Wool into five hundred - today’s dealer may become tomorrow’s thousand dollars’ curator. There was some dissension when Jeff Deitch (noted New A monochrome by Ellsworth Kelly worth of product in York dealer who has represented Jeff Koons among other art the course of a few stars) was named director of the LA Museum of Contemporary years? So how do dealers accomplish that? It is an impressive feat Art. He retained his status as a dealer as well. Some thought this which many have tried but relatively few have pulled off in the big represented a conflict of interest. His position was due in large part art markets. What it comes down to is finding a way to get enough to the support of Eli Broad who is one of the premier collectors of rich people to accept something as great art so that the brand is contemporary art. So the various players in the contemporary art established and then it can be marketed it like any other product. world may at times wear The Curators different hats. Another The third leg of the stool supporting the contemporary art market example of dealer turned is the curator. These are the people who arrange for new work to be curator is Massimilianno shown in museums or major exhibitions such as the Venice Biennial. Gioni who is this year’s It would be unusual for a new work to find its way into that kind curator of the Venice of venue without already being promoted by dealers and held in Biennial. That role will important collections. Once new art has been successfully branded it certainly enhance his becomes collected; then it needs the imprimatur of museums such as position as a NY dealer MOMA to validate it as having lasting value. Theoretically, the curator in contemporary art. “The U.S. Courts Are Partial to the Government,” has no financial or other ties to the artist or dealer. In fact there are Among collectors the “No Mandatory Patriotism” (center) “The Government Destroys Art.” often incentives which are not made public, such as having a dealer same changing of roles in black oil paint stick, by Richard Serra underwrite the costs of a catalog for a show or help the curator can occur. Emily Rales acquire some other works was a former dealer and curator who has developed a museum which the museum wants for for contemporary art called in suburban Washington. their permanent collection. So all of this activity in the world of contemporary art generates Curators may be beholden to interest and eventually acceptance for the product. Why don’t collectors as well. If someone people ask more like David Rockefeller (who questions such gave MOMA ninety million as with all that dollars a few years ago) money why can’t wants the” something” from a the collectors curator he will get undivided get something attention. of value? Mainly Overview because what The question is: «Why do constitutes value Glenstone Museum people spend huge sums for now is different stuff nobody would want from the traditional ideas of beauty and craft. Now it’s about being an for free?» The short answer original concept, about being branded as “important art”. The public is because it has become accepts anything that can be traded in the open market for cash. If accepted as a commodity. museums have good attendance and the auction houses are making Robert Skull described his Untitled Cowboy by Richard Prince money, who can argue with that? beginnings as a collector in Meanwhile the elephant stands in the room as a symbol of the early ‘60’s: «When I see a new work that I hate, I know it is maybe how much the canons of aesthetic taste have changed over the past worth collecting.” He was on target for the times, buying Pop art fifty years. It is a large animal which folks bump into, go around and and virtually creating a market for it. Later in the ‘70’s he sold a lot yet never seem to wonder just how or why it is there. of it at auction for large profit. Some of the artists were outraged, Ewan MacGregor A Few of the Wilmette Arts Guild’s Contemporary Artists

Cosmic Radiance by Virginia Mallard

After the Garden of Eden, by Elana Ashely My Kite, by Joseph Taylor

For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to www.wilmetteartsguild.org A Few of the Wilmette Arts Guild’s Contemporary Artists

On the Street Where I Live by Brigitte Wolf

All That Jazz by Keri Ippolito

Dancer by Kate Compernolle by Suhad Turayhi

Learning to Read in the Valley of Expectations by Alyssa Weller Search by Curt Frankenstein

For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to www.wilmetteartsguild.org

Reveal by William Oistad

For more information about the artists or articles in this issue go to www.wilmetteartsguild.org